Life and Death (and a few weird things in between)
by Pelahnar
Summary: Some things in the universe are in flux and some things are fixed. There's a new fixed point in the universe, one that was never meant to be. And this one's different. This one lives inside a human and if that human dies, then the fixed point is changed - and fixed points can't be allowed to change. So that's my job. I must keep this human alive.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Torchwood.**

**A/N: Just a bit of fun for Spring Break. Well, it was fun for me anyway. I certainly hope it's fun for you as well.**

**Warning: This contains spoilers from Torchwood: Miracle Day and Series 7, episode 1 of Doctor Who, as well as from the 2012 Christmas Special, The Snowmen. It's also probably helpful if you know Series 5 and 6 of Doctor Who really, really well. Oh, and it's told from the first person POV of the TARDIS. I hope that's not confusing.  
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**Life and Death (and a few weird things in between)**

**Captain Jack Harkness**

When the girl called Rose Tyler looked into the heart of the TARDIS, she could not possibly have known the eventual results of her actions. For that matter, it she didn't even know the immediate results of her actions. Or any of the results in between.

By opening my heart, Rose Tyler released an energy source such that cannot truly be accessed through any other means – the Time Vortex itself. The Bad Wolf. With the full force of this energy coursing through her body, Rose Tyler saved my Doctor and destroyed those who were threatening him.

But Rose Tyler continued with an action that, should _I_ have been in control of the Bad Wolf, I would not have done. She desired that the one who called himself Captain Jack Harkness be alive. She did not understand how this was to be accomplished, but with that energy, her every desire was made real. To ensure his survival, the Wolf made him a fixed point of the universe.

He must always survive, no matter what, or let the universe suffer the consequences.

It was a terrible thing that she had done, but there was no undoing it now. In order to keep this man – and therefore the universe – alive, I decided to split myself, removing only the tiniest of slivers. I sent this single strand of my heart to live on a linear time line, as one with him, to monitor his actions and keep him safe. Forever. With the constant energy that I could supply from the Time Vortex, there was nothing now that could destroy this fixed point, or even damage it.

He had no idea, of course, that I was there. Oh, he soon determined the effects of my presence – he no longer got sick or injured (for very long, anyway), and he didn't stay dead when killed. He didn't even age properly. As time passed, I could feel my host growing confused, then upset, then angry about his powers. But there was no way for me to communicate with him and even had there been, I would not have known how to explain.

Little more than a century passed this way, though he seemed to think it a long time. Of course, I knew that there were various versions of my Doctor and myself nearby on many occasions, but though he looked for them, Jack Harkness only became aware of one of these versions when we got to the time that my Doctor likes so much – the 21st century of the major Earth calendar.

It was much too sudden. I, the single strand living inside him, had been separated from the rest of myself in more ways that one and the Doctor was already reacting against the approach of a fixed point. Had there been more time to adjust, perhaps I'd not have acted as I did. When Jack Harkness grabbed hold of my outer shell, the shock was too much and I ran, taking us all far away.

My Doctor did try, I think. The Captain wanted an explanation of what had happened to him, and my Doctor tried to give him one. Unfortunately, he didn't do a very good job. Either he didn't think Jack really needed to understand the situation completely or else he didn't realize that the explanation was lacking. Whatever the case, Jack simply didn't get it. What was more worrisome though, was that he _thought_ that he did.

His misunderstanding became especially clear – not to mention especially dangerous – when he encountered a morphic field designed to keep the human race alive.

They didn't understand the field, not like I did. A side effect (or perhaps a secondary purpose) of the field was to cut off the entire Earth from the Time Vortex. I wouldn't have thought this possible, but they did it. This was why, had they wondered, my Doctor never showed up to help. He couldn't get there; indeed, he didn't know anything was wrong.

However, in cutting off the Time Vortex, the field also disrupted my ability to keep Jack alive and well. He thought he was normal again, just because a cut on his arm wasn't healing. Cuts mean nothing. He was still a fixed point and if he died, all the consequences of changing a fixed point would still be there.

Through his first 2000 years of the life granted by me, I had never interfered with his actions or his feelings. He had done exactly as he wished throughout the 20th century of the major Earth calendar; I was only there to make sure he always survived it.

In general, he had less concern for his own life than my Doctor did. However, if Jack Harkness died in "The Miracle" it would help no one and harm many. I simply could not allow him to continue living so rashly.

I didn't change much. I didn't force him to do anything or say anything. All I did was give him the desire to live, something he'd lost about halfway through the 20th century. With this desire, he wouldn't commit suicide (even though he now could), he'd enjoy the mortal life he now had, and he'd fight to save his own life when it was threatened. The desire I gave him was even strong even for him to put his own life before that of his best friend. I didn't particularly like that, but it had to be.

Captain Jack Harkness did survive the Miracle, much to my relief, and he went on to live for a time period that even I would consider long. Millions of Earth-years. Billions. He met my Doctor time and time again. Sometimes the Doctor knew who he was, but more often Jack – or, as he was now called, the Face of Boe – would be unrecognized and he'd only watch the Doctor from the side and not interfere unless it was necessary.

There was one time that the Face of Boe actually called my Doctor himself, when he felt that perhaps he was actually about to die. The idea that he might now be mortal after such a long period of immortality was not such a foolish one; this was a very old body and dragging it back to life each time was getting more and more difficult for me. I could not keep this up for much longer.

My Doctor came, though he didn't yet know who it was that had called him. Still, just seeing him again gave Boe – not to mention me – some strength to continue living for awhile longer.

Not much longer though. Only a few years later, Boe poured all the energy he and I had combined into saving the city of New New York. Once again, my Doctor was there, but this time there was nothing that either of us could do to save the one-time Captain.

Desperate that the rest of the universe should not share his fate, however, I wrapped the tiny sliver of myself around the spark of life that Rose Tyler had once wanted to keep safe forever. With some effort, I moved it back to the TARDIS.

We couldn't stay here for long, but I was able to keep the spark alive deep inside the console I had once known so well. Just barely alive, but alive, and it would have to be enough until another suitable host could be found.

* * *

**Rory Williams**

Just after his 10th regeneration, my Doctor lost control and we crashed somewhere on Earth and not too far from his favourite time period. I couldn't keep the fixed point alive with all the damage that had been done, so the time had come – I had to find a new host for it, and I had to find one _now_.

His name was Rory Williams. He wasn't very old, but as it turned out, he was best friends with the little girl whom my Doctor had briefly met just after our wild landing. He'd certainly left an impression on her. The Raggedy Doctor, she called him. Though Rory didn't know it, he spent a good deal of his childhood playing games about a man he'd know well in a previous life.

Not that Rory Williams _was_ Jack Harkness with a new name and appearance. No, for all intents and purposes, Rory and Jack were two completely separate people. However similarities of personality did exist – they had to, or else I would never have been able to move the fixed point into Rory.

For the first twelve years I spent with Rory, he didn't really show any of these shared personality traits, simply for lack of opportunity. He was intelligent, of course, but there was little need for bravery and courage in this town; he _was_ able to help people relentlessly through his nursing though.

Then my Doctor returned for Amy Pond, bringing the Atraxi right behind him and Rory began to show his true self. Well, he tried; he noticed the coma victims and attempted to do something about them, a bit unsuccessfully.

When Rory first saw the TARDIS, however, he nearly made the Doctor start worrying. Why didn't he react with "bigger on the inside" like most humans did? Rory told him something about doing some reading since the last time – which was true – but that wasn't why he'd been able to overcome the natural shock of seeing the TARDIS. Instead, being in the control room had allowed a very brief memory from Jack's life to surface. The idea that this place was perfectly normal, that he'd been here before and even that he knew what it was.

With very little help from me or the latent qualities of the fixed point, Rory fell into life with the Doctor extremely easily. He thought it was all for Amy Pond, but in fact she was only the catalyst. He came because of her, he stayed because he wanted to. My host was happy, my Doctor was happy. For a time, things were good.

Until my host was killed and promptly erased from existence before I could bring him back to life as I'd done for Jack so many times.

It should have been impossible to for us to survive on the other side of the crack, but somehow we did. There was the faintest link connecting Rory back to the other side – a memory link from Amy. I was able to hold on to it and keep us from being completely destroyed until...until that memory was drawn back into the universe and placed inside a Plastic Auton. Something else that probably should've been impossible. Rory Williams had been reborn as a Roman soldier, with me and the spark of life that meant the fixed point had survived safely inside him.

For a number of years, Rory traveled with his wife and my Doctor, for the most part completely ignorant of what he really was. Normally, he couldn't remember being Plastic and normally he didn't try. But coming back to life like that and spending so much time just waiting had unlocked a few memories, not to mention a few personality traits, from his predecessor. He tried not to think about the new memories – they seemed to be from someone else completely and that couldn't be right, could it?

Except there was one night when he overheard Amy talking to the Doctor about her own mixed up memories. "People think their memories are bad," he was telling her. "But their _memories_ are fine. The past really is like that." I could feel doubts growing in Rory's mind after that. Had he really known previous regenerations of the Doctor in another life or from another time line? He didn't have an answer to that and didn't know how to explain it, so he didn't mention it to the Doctor either.

For the most part, Rory simply didn't think about it and the Doctor didn't even notice the difference. There was only once when he slipped and accidentally spoke about their travels together in the past tense, because he'd been caught in a brief vision of himself, a girl who was _not_ Amy, and a man who was _not_ this Doctor in a room which was _not_ the TARDIS control room that he knew.

I knew why he was getting the vision just then. The hotel they were in was dragging up everyone's worst fears and while Rory didn't have the faith the make a room for himself, he still had a worst fear and, because of the location, I could see quite clearly what it was.

Though he didn't know it, Rory feared having a life like Jack's. He feared dying and living and dying again, an endless cycle continuing on beyond everything and everyone he loved. It was something anyone might fear, given cause to, but most people didn't even entertain the possibility. Deep down, Rory Williams knew that for him it _was_ a possibility, and so he _did_ fear it.

Up until the adventure in that hotel, I had planned on keeping Rory alive for as long as it could be done, as I had Jack. It was not until here that I realized that it would only be torture for him – as it had been for Jack. With Jack, I felt that I had an excuse; I did not know that the fixed point could be successfully transferred to another body and had only tried that as a last resort. I no longer had such an excuse.

It was then that I began to search for a new host, so I could set Rory's unknown fears at rest and let him live out the rest of his life with Amy, as he wanted to.

* * *

**Clara Oswin Oswald**

She was perfect. She was smart and enthusiastic. She had all of Jack's flirtatiousness – an area in which Rory had always been lacking. There was the little tiny issue of the Dalek conversion thing, but that could be circumvented somehow.

Oswin Oswald – or, before she'd dropped the first name while joining the ship's crew, _Clara_ Oswin Oswald – would make a fine new host.

I transferred myself and the fixed point to her as she guided Rory away from the Daleks, but it soon became apparent that reversing the Dalek conversion was the least of my problems with Clara. She was soon to be completely destroyed when the Dalek asylum exploded. Regrowing a body is certainly not impossible for me – Jack had been blown up many times over the course of his long life – but there had always previously been a body to start from. Clara had no body, just a Dalek casing and delusions of humanity.

I was not ready to give up such a perfect host though. Just before the explosion destroyed her forever, I saved her consciousness and took it into the past to one of her ancestors. A bit of tweaking on the DNA level ensured that she would also have the same appearance that her future self had remembered having. In 1866, Clara Oswin Oswald was reborn as a perfect replica of herself from the future.

She still had to grow up and there was very little in the line of memory transfer. But she was certainly the same person; clever and curious and, when she was old enough, extremely flirty.

Only when my Doctor arrived did she start having flashbacks of being Oswin and, earlier, Rory. She was certainly more drawn to the Doctor than most of his previous friends had been. Even I was surprised when she successfully used her vague memories to draw my Doctor out of his brooding with that one word: Pond. She couldn't consciously realize its significance, but something from Rory must've echoed down.

Clara died for a second time more quickly after meeting the Doctor than I'd expected, but no matter. I had found that copying the consciousness across time was actually easier than bringing a dead body back to life, so I did this again, but not before leaving clues in the TARDIS as to where and when she would end up. The Doctor would want to follow.

He'd heard her die with exactly the same words twice now. He knew something was up. And he's the Doctor – so he'd be trying to figure out what.

**A/N: Well, I wrote a story trying to save Oswin back when she was a Dalek - I thought I might as well do something else with what little more information was given in The Snowmen. Also I came across a joke on the internet yesterday that kind of inspired this: Jack, Rory, and Clara walk into a bar. Who dies first?**

**So, did you like it? Was it boring? I get the idea it might be boring, I don't know. Maybe it's the lack of dialogue. I've never written a story with so little dialogue in it - there's only one line of dialogue, did you notice? Anyway...**

**Please review!**


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